Shadow Lord
Malverlain, better known as the Shadow Lord, was the son of Chieftain Peregrine, of Dorne and the brother of Anoltis and Aldannen. Malverlain, or the Shadow Lord, like his brothers, was a Half-Fellan from Dorne. The Shadow Lord is the ruler of the Shadowlands beyond the Barrier Mountains that lie to the north of Deltora, once called the Land of Dragons by its people and foreigners. He is main antagonist of the ''Deltora Quest'' series and is shown to be a very powerful sorcerer. He resided in the Shadowlands and made attempts to rule Deltora throughout the series. He is shown to be a very clever planner and creates many plans to foil even those who appear to defeat him at first. His most loyal servants are the seven Ak-Baba, huge, monstrous vulture-like birds that are very strong, and lives a thousand years. He is, in short, a megalomaniac, being convinced that all creatures should obey him. The Shadow Lord apparently goes by a policy that if he can't have something, he will simply destroy it, evident by deciding to just destroy Deltora with the Grey Tide when his Four Sisters strategy failed. He is also seems to be very sadistic, deriving pleasure from tormenting Lief mentally. The Shadow Lord cares nothing about his subordinates, viewing them as simple pawns. An exception to this may be the Ak-Baba, if for their strength and loyalty if no other reason. History Early life The Shadow Lord was once a sorcerer of unknown origin, who repeatedly suffered defeat while sailing alone on his ship, looking for a place to rule. At this time, he was powerful, but not nearly as powerful as he would one day become. But in fact, he had been born in a region called Nerra on the island of Dorne, which lies just east of Deltora in the Silver Sea. He was born with the name Malverlain (shortened to Verlain), and was the son of Chieftain 'Perry' Peregrine and the Fellan Alena. But he had to share with his siblings. Malverlain became jealous with his brother, Anoltis (known as Olt), who he thought had stolen the throne from him. He fought Olt, but his younger brother sided with his opponent and Malverlain could not defeat them, for together they were practically invincible. Soon, Malverlain was banished from Dorne, forced to travel through the dangerous Silver Sea. The four sisters In his search, he chanced upon a beautiful island that was home to four sisters: Flora, Viva, Aqua, and Terra. They were all beautiful singers, but Malverlain, hating all beautiful things, and furious with what his siblings had done to him, imprisoned each on a separate corner of the island. However, the sisters still sang to one another from a long distance, and Malverlain still was not rid of the singing. Enraged, he hurried to each of the corners and struck the sisters one, murdering them, one by one. However, their singing had soothed and sealed a great beast in the center of the land; by killing them and silencing their singing, Malverlain had enraged and released the beast. Angered, it rose, crushing the beasts, smashing the mountains, and cracking the rock that the island rested on, so that it began to sink. Malverlain, not yet powerful enough to face the beast, fled out in the Silver Sea, conjuring up a small wooden boat with a grey sail, marked with red. Arrival at Deltora on his arrival at Deltora.]]One day, he washed ashore on Deltora, then known as the Land of Dragons. He landed on the northwest side, in the territory of the Emerald. He immediately decided that this was the land that he wanted to rule. However, he was soon attacked and burned by an Emerald Dragon and fled to the mountain range, now known as the Barrier Mountains, separating Deltora and Pirra. He hid there for many years, gathering followers in the many bandits and killers also living in the mountains. The birth of the Ak-Baba One day, on a snowy peak, he found what he thought at the time was a dragon egg. He was very pleased with his discovery, thinking that he could raise his own army of dragons to conquer Deltora. What he didn't know was dragon nests are always lined with human hair. When he brought it to his cave and the egg hatched, however, he realized that this was not a dragon; it was a kind of bird. Though disappointed and furious, he soon realized that this bird could be useful in its own way, and he presumably found 6 more eggs, resulting in what would eventually become his loyal group of Ak-Baba. The Shadowlands egg on top of a mountain in the Barrier Mountains, the Shadow Lord raised it himself.]]Later, when he was more powerful, Malverlain went to Pirra. He tricked the Pirrans into splitting both their people and, more importantly, their magic flute, known as the Pirran Pipe, into three parts. Without the Pirran Pipe, the land of Pirra lost its power and the Pirrans fled to a secret underground ocean beneath Deltora. Malverlain ruled the now-vacant Pirra, which became the Shadowlands, and he, himself, became the Shadow Lord as the people of Deltora know him. The Battle for Deltora The Shadow Lord then attempted to take over Deltora by himself. In the Shadowlands, he built a factory, in which he created fearsome beings, such as the Grey Guards and the Vraals, and with these, he formed what later became known as the Shadow Army. With his new army, the Shadow Lord greedly raid and plundered the land of Deltora, burning down towns, slaying the lands’ people. However, a blacksmith, Adin, during the Battle for Deltora, united the tribes of Deltora with the Belt of Deltora and drove the Shadow Lord's armies back to the Shadowlands. It became the custom for the heir of Deltora to always wear the Belt of Deltora; however, the royal family's advisors were slowly replaced with the Shadow Lord's servants in secret, and they made it the custom for the Belt of Deltora only to be worn on the day that the heir became king or queen. Eventually, the Shadow Lord succeeded in stealing the gems of the Belt of Deltora and scattering them throughout the land, and with the help of his seven Ak-Baka, he killed all but seven of Deltora's dragons – each of which was a member of all the land’s different species of dragons. Presumably, one hundred years before the time of King Lief, the sorceress Thaegan came to the Shadowlands after running away from her mother, who was upset with her daughter's fascination with dark magic. When she left, she decided to settle in Deltora, now more powerful than ever. It is not known when, but once Thaegan had also married Malverlain's brother, the sorcerer Dann, and given birth to their dreaded, hideous thirteen monster children. The Stolen Gems Sixteen years later, Lief and his companions Barda and Jasmine collected the seven gems from the most feared places in the land: the Forests of Silence; the Lake of Tears; City of the Rats; the Shifting Sands; Dread Mountain; the Maze of the Beast and the Valley of the Lost. He then expelled the Shadow Lord from Deltora when he rearranged the Belt so the first letters of each gem spelt out "DELTORA" and put the Belt on, revealing himself to be the heir, and the last in Adin's bloodline. The Pirran Pipe After the newly crowned King Lief's victory, the Shadow Lord took the people of the town Noradz to the Shadowlands, only to brainwash them (by putting mind-control worms in them) and make them his loyal servants. Among these servants were the girl Tira, who had helped Lief, Barda and Jasmine escape her city on their first quest to retrieve the stolen gems. The new king Lief, and his friends, Barda and Jasmine, set off on a quest for the Pirrian Pipe, which was said to be the only weapon strong enough to defeat the Shadow Lord in his own domain. It was the Palace Librarian Josef, who had revealed the Pipe’s existence to them. Once they had got all three pieces of the Pipe from each of the secret underground islands, they traveled into the Shadowlands and let themselves be taken as prisoners. When arriving at the Shadow Arena, Lief withdrew the Pipe and blew in it, but he was unfortunately not skilled enough, so Lief offered the Pirran Emlis, who was with them at the time, the Pipe, and he played it, sending the Shadow Lord further in exile. This gave the heroes the opportunity to free all his slaves, and together they fled the Shadowlands. The Four Sisters Lief then learnt of the Four Sisters, four evil creatures which sing a poisonous song, making anything unable to grow in Deltora, therfore starving the people of Deltora. The Shadow Lord had planted them there a long time ago, in case everything else he had plotted would turn out wrong. He had based this last desperate plan on his encounter with four sisters on an island, which he had come to after fleeing from Dorne. His several plans were even referrered to as ’plans inside plans’ by Barda. Lief, Barda and Jasmine set out to awake the seven remaining dragons of Deltora, whose the famous traveler who lived long ago during the time of King Lucan, Doran the Dragonlover, had talked into falling into a deep magical slumber on his last journey, before being reported as missing, and even worse, dead. But in fact, he had become a guardian of one of the Four Sisters, the Sister of the West, which now lived inside him. So in order to for the Sister of the West to be killed, Doran had to be killed as well. On this last quest, Lief, Barda and Jasmine united each of the seven dragons with their counterpart gem, using four of the dragons’ help to destroy the Sisters, one by one. But the Shadow Lord had a very last plan with the Sisters, for if they were to be destroyed, a giant mass of grey slime, located in the heart of the land, in the City of the Rats, formerly known as Hira, would arise and cover Deltora in a hardening grey slime. When Lief did succeed in silencing the last of the Sisters, and the tide of grey slime rose, however with the help of Deltora's last dragons, whose secret names were revealed to be Veritas, Hopian, Fortuna, Fidelis, Forta, Honoura and Joyeau, stopped the tide from consuming the whole land. And so the Shadow Lord's plans were ended and Lief married Jasmine, who became queen of Deltora. But knowin that the Shadow Lord had been defeated, yet not killed, Lief still never removed the Belt. And he did remained in his domain, plotting. Attack on Dorne Some time after this, the Shadow Lord tried to invade Dorne. He sent a spy to advise the Chieftan there to attack the Fellan, for the Fellan protected the island from the Shadow Lord. Luckily for the people of Dorne, five heroes from Weld foiled the Shadow Lord's plans. Physical appearance The Shadow Lord was once a human being, with dark skin and a long black beard but over the years of his life anger and hatred compleatly consumed his physical body. He had a large cloak, reffered to his cloak of shadows in Tales of Deltora, and a magic staff made of a wooden branch, curled up on top, just like the one of the Maia Gandalf the Maia in film adaptations of the works by J.R.R. Tolkien. The Shadow Lord is in the three series, mentioned repeatedly, and during the last battle in Return to Del, he appears, but floating in the air, surrounded by dark red clouds. However, he has actually been shown very briefly in an illustraton by Marc McBride in Tales of Deltora (but it is not yet known if that illustration is canon or not.) Anime In the anime, the Shadow Lord is depicted as a massive, demonic entity with glowing red eyes, a body made out of darkness and as having a deep sinister voice. Personality The Shadow Lord is a very powerful dark sorcerer, who rules the Shadowlands beyond the Barrier Mountains to the north of Deltora, which were formerly the land of Pirra. He is cruel and his soul is dark and twisted with greed and jealously, and he hates everything good and beautiful. The Shadow Lord is jealous of the people of Deltora, and the king, because his plans to takeover the land have failed again and again. His strength has grown over the thousand years he has been in the Shadowlands, and his hatred upon the Royal Family of Deltora has as well. Abilities Relatives Appearances The Three Doors *''The Third Door'' (flashback) Other *''Tales of Deltora'' *''Secrets of Deltora'' (mentioned) Trivia References Category:Characters Category:Villains Category:Antagonists Category:Fellan Category:People of Dorne